


the calendar hung itself (august and everything after)

by xylodemon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, MWPP Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-01
Updated: 2005-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/pseuds/xylodemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The blanket slips low, cresting the jut of Sirius' hip, framing the line where Sirius's skin flickers from sunbrowned to white.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the calendar hung itself (august and everything after)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://stateline.livejournal.com/profile)[**stateline**](http://stateline.livejournal.com/) and [](http://yeats.livejournal.com/profile)[**yeats**](http://yeats.livejournal.com/) at the close of [](http://dogdaysofsummer.livejournal.com/profile)[**dogdaysofsummer**](http://dogdaysofsummer.livejournal.com/) 2005.

Hours become minutes become days become weeks. Time does not tick by. It slides past unheeded, marked only by moonlight and sunlight painting the Potters' back garden silver and gold by turns. The slow lethargy of summer wanes in inches, coyly calling autumn with a wind like shy, beckoning fingers.

Remus stretches, yawns at the stars glittering through the window. Sirius, illicit, secret, stirs next to him, mocking the empty bed across the hall with blankets twisted around his limbs like a snake. Remus watches the thin light play across Sirius' body, smells salt and sweat on his skin.

Sirius' arm is tucked behind is head, and in the curve of his elbow, Remus sees kisses stolen under the Potter's apple tree, remembers Sirius' hand curled around the back of his neck. Sirius sighs under Remus' scrutiny, a soft whisp of air past his lips, and in it, Remus hears Sirius' whispering please in the back of Fortescues, feels the heat of Sirius' skin against his palm.

The blanket slips low, cresting the jut of Sirius' hip, framing the line where Sirius's skin flickers from sunbrowned to white. Below his navel Sirius is shell-pale and abalone-smooth, speckled with dark hair that tickles Remus' fingers. Remus thinks of the ocean, of cool, blue-green water curling around his ankles, of seaweed slipping between his toes and beach-sand hidden under Sirius' fingernails.

He strokes Sirius awake, hands across his chest, thumbs over his nipples, a long finger chasing a moonshadow along the line of his jaw. Sirius pulls Remus to him with a half-swallowed sigh, his lips twisting lazily around the vowels of Remus' name. He arches, hardness and heat as his hips rise off the bed, soft, open-mouthed kisses to Remus' neck and the rough slide of sweat-damp skin.

There is a moment, between his own hitched breaths and the flutter of Sirius' heart when Remus wonders what autumn will bring. He pictures brisk winds in the inky splay of Sirius' hair, stirring fallen leaves across the ground, imagines shared scarves and hot chocolate kisses in the warmth of Sirius' palm on his thigh.

September waits behind the muted creak of bedsprings, hides inside the soft rustle of curtains in a failing summer wind. Its approach threatens the newness of this, promises to bury it under the weight of books and parchment and ink. For a moment, Remus fancies he can hold this last night, keep it, tuck it away inside Sirius' body, thinks with the fragility of youth that he can bring time to a halt.

Remus knows it will be morning the next time he opens his eyes, knows he'll feel the season change in a single moment -- not in the chill sweep of the witching hour or the rigid tick of a clock, but in the stretched, suspended second before the train pulls away from the station.

Eleven hours, thirty-seven minutes, and seventeen seconds (give or take a heartbeat), but he's not counting, he's not.


End file.
